How much precious metal is in your iPhone?

While urban mining is nothing new, it’s a phrase not many are familiar with. What it refers to is the scavenging for precious metals in old electronic products like cell phones and tablets.

Today’s devices are filled with many different precious metals. (Image via thestar.com.my)

The practice has seen tremendous growth in recent years, especially as metal prices have continued to increase. What kind of precious metals are we talking about here? Gold, copper, silver, platinum, and more—much more as a matter of fact.

These materials are recovered from old, retired, or otherwise dead devices, and melted down. They are then sold as lumps and nuggets to jewelers, investors, and in some cases, they even get sold back to the manufacturers themselves, who use the recycled metals to create the components of tomorrow’s popular devices.

The entire subject is fascinating, and to help illustrate what phone has which metals in it, how much today’s top devices are worth on this new market, and more, 911metallurgist.com put together the following infographic to help everyone get a better understanding of why mining one’s old cell phone could prove a profitable practice: